Common bond

I've been thinking lately about the things that have helped make me the person I am today. I have been thinking of things and people that have influenced me in both subtle and profound ways. The stuff that shaped me and polished me into what you now see.

We all have so many factors in our lives that play into the forming of us. A lot of these influences are ones that we had in childhood or sometimes early adult hood. Some of these influences come in later in life. I am not denying the possibility of growth and change at any point.

Pretty much though we are a conglomeration of thoughts and ideas placed in us from people and things that we encounter. Some of these are bad things as I have discussed in prior blogs. Some are good things as well. Good and bad, they all make up one whole person.

What I have decided is that I really want to talk about the good things. I want to talk about the things that have influenced me in a positive fashion. I want to talk about what has given me my fun quirks and my better qualities and attributes. Whether these things be people, or books, or TV shows, or places, they all helped shape me and I want to talk about them.

The thing is there are more things and people than I can write about in one post. Well I probably could, but then it would be the longest post ever and none of you would read it. I also think that would be fairly exhausting to write. I have my limits.

So I have decided to make a series of posts over the next few weeks. Yes that is right my posts are going to be themed for the next short while. I don't anticipate it being an entire month worth of posts, but you never know. I really hope not though because this month is October, which means Halloween is coming, and I want to do more ghost stories like I did last year.

So tune in next week when I start my series on things that make me me.

You're a good man Charlie Brown

The husbeast is not perfect. He is far from it. Of course I myself am far from perfect as well. I am not really sure anyone is actually perfect, especially people who think they are. We are all flawed. We are human, it is part of the gig.

The husbeast is most certainly flawed. I mean he has some huge glaring annoying obnoxious flaws. There are things about him that drive me absolutely insane. He does stuff sometimes that makes me want to smother him in his sleep with a pillow. I am working under the impression that this is a normal things in most marriages.

By the general fact that he is both still breathing and married to me, I think it is safe to assume that I have, as of yet, not taken the smothering route. I have learned to tolerate his flaws and in some instances embrace them. I love him not really in spite of his flaws but more because of them.

So that sounds weird I know. Loving his flaws when they drive me to thoughts of murder seems a bit off. Here is the thing though, if he didn't have his flaws he wouldn't be himself. I love him. All of him. The entire package, flaws and all.

While I may really wish he could learn to at least take his dishes to the sink and maybe someday also rinse them off, I am not holding my breath that either will ever happen, and I am alright with this. I know he will never actually mean that he will do something in a minute and will more likely either never get around to it or wait for days or weeks to get it done. I know that he will always be more stubborn than a mule. I know he will always get irrationally angry while driving. I know that he will have glaring moments of hypocrisy. It is just who he is.

I also know though that he will always be fiercely loyal to those he calls his. I know that he can be tender and loving and gentle despite his gruff outer appearance. I know he is brilliant and while he will passionately and sometimes stubbornly argue his point, he can learn and accept other points of view. I know he has wit and a sharp tactical eye. I know he can create and imagine. I know that he can be very insecure and critical of himself. I know he will work himself to the point of hurting himself if he thinks it will provide for us. I know that he can love.

I know he is a good man.

It hurts me when I see him hurting for any reason. He tries to be tough and slough things off, but the truth is he is not a duck and water does not just roll off his back. He will get angry and lash out when he is hurt because it is an easy emotion for him. Rage comes naturally. Anyone who either doesn't expect this or thinks it is over reacting doesn't actually know him very well.

The thing is that after the initial rage is always the most profound sadness. He tries so hard, and does the best he knows how, and he will never understand why that isn't always enough. There will always be someone out there who will either take advantage of his loyalty or expect more than he has to give. There will always be people who mistake his absentmindedness for intentional neglect. There will always be people who can't accept his flaws and love him for them.

I don't think these people are worth all the pain they cause him. They lash out at him thinking that he is just a big tough man and forget that he is actually a person. Just a person like the rest of us, with everything they are out on the line for this fragile and volatile thing we call friendship and love. They forget that when it is all said and done, in the quiet darkness, that he lays awake and wonders what it is he did wrong to cause someone to hurt him so very much. They just assume he doesn't hurt. They assume that he doesn't work like that. All they expect is him to be angry and think that he has done nothing wrong.

The thing is he always thinks he was the one in the wrong and he always wants to fix it. He can't see that sometimes he didn't break it in the first place. He can't see that these people are being cowardly and lashing out at him because of things that they are themselves insecure about.

Small men will always want to pick a fight with the husbeast because he is so very large and strong. They have something to prove to themselves and the world and think by taking on the giant they will somehow fix their own insecurities. The same is true with people with small scared minds. They will attack the husbeast hoping for the reaction of anger so they can feel justified in their attack.

"I told him he was wrong and he got angry" they say to themselves. "He got angry and yelled which proves to me I am right and he is the lesser man for not being calm and rational."

I say you are the lesser man for picking that fight. I think you are the lesser man for hurting someone you are supposed to love. I think you are the lesser man and a coward for not standing up face to face and saying what is really bothering you.

I have no room in my world for cowards and people who hurt anyone I love, especially my husbeast. You know what else? He is better off without people like that in his world.

I love the husbeast, flaws and all. While I may want to smother him sometimes, I never will because I am a better person for having him in my world. He is a good man and if you can't see that, then you are the one losing in the end.

Lost in time

I have this problem remembering when things happen. I mean if you were to ask me when in my life something occurred I could give you a very detailed description of that time. I can tell you what part of the year it was in, what character I was playing at faire, what show I was working on, who was getting married or having a baby, movies that were coming out, and all the other things that stand out in my head.

What I can not do is tell you what year any event occurred in. Years seem to blur together and I have the greatest of difficulties telling you how many years it has been since something happened. I still have to count backwards from the year I graduated high school to tell you when I was in what grade.

I couldn't even tell you what year I was married in. I mean the day of the month, sure I know that, but the year? Nope. That particular detail never seemed important enough to memorize. I know I have been married 8 years, and we were engaged for 1 year, and we dated for three years, and we knew each other a year before that. I have to stop and do some thinking and counting on my fingers to come up with a date for the start date for almost any of these.

The thing is when I do the math in my head and compare it to other events I know were happening at the time, they don't always match up. I know that sounds weird but it is so true. Let me give an example.

This last year at Scarborough it was my 10th season on cast. I know this only because I actually have to count characters I have played. That means my first season on cast was 2003, even though my brain says it should have been 2002 since this is 2012. Counting from one always throws things off.

Now this last weekend we were trying to figure out how long the shop has been opened and how long I have been working there. We came up with it is the shop opened in 1999 and has been open 13 years. I will give you a moment. Yes that makes 14 years. That whole counting from 1 business again.

I was laying in bed last night when I realized this and got terribly disappointed that we had gotten the times wrong. We had planned to throw a party for 13 years in business, and this would just ruin it. Me and my stupid math skills messed everything up.

Then I realized I was both right and wrong. The shop has been open 13 years because it opened in 2000 not 1999. We were basing the original year of opening off of my start date with the shop. I thought I had started in 2000, which was the second year we were open.

After a lot of thinking I realized a few things.

First: My first year in the shop I had been dating the husbeast for 1 full year. We started dating in October of my sophomore year of college, which was 2000.

Second: During my first year I was living over on University which happened in the summer of 2001.

Third: We were doing Hamlet at school that year. We did Cabaret in 2000.

All of this evidence leads me to the conclusion that I started in 2001 and this is my 11th year of employment at the shop. I took a year off in 2010.

I laid awake for well over an hour last night going back and forth on whether this was right or not. I just could not remember for the life of me what was the right year. I am just special like that I suppose. There are always much worse things to lose sleep over, though probably not quite as trivial.

I suppose I would do well to write down major events somewhere, with the year included. Someday these facts might be needed and I can't guarantee my memory will always be good enough to recall enough details to piece together the correct year.

Of course I could just let myself forget and just not care about things like how old I actually am or how long I have actually been married. I mean that isn't really important right? I can just say I am older than I was last year and have been married a long time. Right?

Good day

I have the first honey crisp apple of the season sitting on my desk. Happy bouncy music is piping in through my headphones from my iPod. At my house all of my bags and supplies for the weekend are ready to be packed in the car. I have enough work to keep me busy until it is time to leave. I get to go home early without using any PTO. The new sofa table we have been waiting 3 months for arrives this afternoon. Once everyone is off of work and assembled we leave for the first work weekend for TRF (Texas Renaissance Festival).

All of these things together make for one really good day. I am even having good hair today. I mean this is a seriously good day folks, and boy did I need a good day. I have had a lot of less than stellar days of late, but today is just all sunshine and lollipops.

Really the anticipation for this weekend is the best part of the day. I so can not wait to get in the car and drive down to faire. I can not wait to see everyone after so very long. I can't wait to get all hot and sweaty and dirty doing good hard work. Yea I know that seems weird, but I love it. It is so very rewarding.

I am having some trouble focusing on my work because of this, but that is alright. I am not doing anything that requires great amounts of concentration, and nothing that can't really wait until next week to be done. I can drift off into my own daydreams and that is perfectly acceptable.

So here I sit, fidgeting in my chair, bopping along to my music, chewing thoughtfully on my tasty apple, trying very hard to focus on work while dreaming about the weekend. Not a bad way to spend my Friday.

Nothing to see here

Today is one of those days where the seemingly Herculean effort of being an adult is weighing me down. I wrote and entire post about my own little anxious rage that I am living through just now, but then I decided not to post it. I didn't want to post it.

I think I have said before I don't want to put that sort of negativity into the universe. I am typically a happy person and that is the way I like to keep it. I am not perfect. I am not always sunshine and lollipops. I am just human and I get angry sad and anxious like everyone else. Here lately it is just more from column B than column A.

I will be fine. I am taking proactive steps to keep my life on the sunny side of the street. It is just a lot of hard work. Hard work and patience. Lots of patience. Nothing moves quickly. Or easily. Ever.

I want to put something good here. A picture I have taken that I am proud of. Something I have written that I like. An anecdote of something I have done well. I just don't know what to put here.

Weird. I think I am actually speechless.

The donut that broke the camels back

I want to present a scenario to you today. Afterwards I would like to ask you, my minions, if I am completely out of line in being in a state fit to be tied.


Picture this:

It is a Friday morning in an office. The office is small, only about 50 people in it total. The building itself is one large room with a few small manager offices lining the walls. Really it is your typical cube farm setting.

The office population is broken into five or six small groups within the overall team. Most groups fave 6 to 10 people in them, but a few only have three or four. There is one large group of about 12 people who are only temporarily in the office while their building is being remodeled.

This group has not been the best guests thus far. They are loud, they use our resources, and get in our way. They are completely unapologetic about their behavior, though not entirely oblivious. They have noted multiple times about how loud they are in comparison to the rather quiet environment they have been placed in. They also follow these statements with loud laughter at our misfortune.

Back to Friday morning. Friday morning, which is the start of the end of a long week. Friday morning which is by far the best  morning of the work week because it is the last. Friday  morning which should be low key and relaxing.

Imagine sitting quietly in your cube, trying to start your day, and all you can hear is the loudest member of this group chattering on to her coworkers. It doesn't matter where you are in the building, you can hear her clear as day. It is like she is standing right next to you even though she is two aisles away from you.

You sit there listening as she loudly repeats the same story to each member of her group as they straggle in over a nearly two hour period. Sometimes she repeats the story two and three times to the same person in a ten minute span as though they didn't hear her the first time.

"It's Craig's birthday today so I brought donuts. The thing is she didn't know I was going to bring donuts, because I only decided this morning to bring donuts. She had the same idea though so we both brought donuts!" Loud laughter ensues. "Yes we both brought donuts!"

At this point it is like being in the middle of the engagement party in Auntie Mame and she is Gloria Upson grinning through gritted teeth saying "And she stepped on the ball!"

"So now we have two big boxes of donuts. That is a lot of donuts. I hope you want donuts. It is alright to be bad, I mean its just one donut. We have so many donuts because we both bought a box of donuts. She didn't know I had already bought a box so she brought some too. There are so many donuts."

This goes on and on. Endless prattle about the donut surplus. For nearly two hours.

One would expect at this point that when going in the breakroom that there would be two large boxes of donuts sitting out. Or at least one box with the dounts that the group had failed to consume. Only there are no donuts in the breakroom. Not a single donut.

One of two things have happened. Either they tapped into their inner Homer Simpson and managed to deal with the donut surplus themselves, or they are hoarding them at their desks. They have now loudly and repeatedly made it clear to everyone in the office that there are unwanted donuts but failed to produce the goods.


So that is the scenario that played out in my office this morning. I have no problem with buying donuts for only the people in your group and not sharing with everyone. Donuts are expensive, and you may not want to shell out the money to feed 50 people donuts. We do that all the time for our group.

When we do buy donuts for just the four people in our group we quietly inform everyone that there are donuts in one of our cubes. We don't announce it to everyone that there are donuts but they are not available for public consumption. We have our donuts without fuss.

If there are leftover donuts we place them in the breakroom which is office code for 'Please eat these things I bought too many'. It is an unspoken rule that we are all very comfortable with. By doing this we haven't insulted anyone by not inviting them to our personal donut party.

Announcing that you have donuts but then not sharing is just rude. Why would you do that to people? Why on earth would you shout to the heavens about your sweet donuty goodness and then not share. Are you just rubbing it in our faces now?

I don't even want a donut. I mean I like donuts and all, but I didn't want one this morning. I ate pizza last night and was planning on having a smoothie with lunch. I didn't need the extra calories and sugar. I was alright with not getting a donut.

The thing is though they put the donut vibe out there, and should I have wanted a donut I would have been so sadly disappointed. I mean that will ruin a persons Friday. Get a person all worked up over a donut and then not provide. That is just wrong.

I have a lot of tension built up when it comes to my office right now. I find the environment very stressful. I am starting to think I should have taken my doctors offer for a bottle of Xanax. This mornings slight has just added to all the other small annoyances that have been grating at me. I admit it caused a lot of rage in me.

That is right, I had donut rage. A lot of it. You know what else? I don't feel bad about it in the least. They failed all of their office etiquette rolls. This was just the last straw.

So tell me minions, am I wrong to be upset about this? Should I have just ignored it? Or am I justified in my anger?

Potty talk

Alright so I had a post idea in my head today that was of a slightly serious nature. It is a subject that I am eager to discuss and share even though it is something I feel I should be guarded about still. As I was weighing whether or not to actually blog about this I realized I had a much more urgent thing to blog on; public restroom behavior.

Yes I really just wrote that. I am going to blog about the potty. You have been warned.

I work in an office and have for most of the last decade. I also went to public school and in general spend a good amount of time out in the world where public restrooms are a necessity. I was never one of those people that had phobias or issues with public restrooms. Actually if you ask my mom she will tell you that when I was little I would insist on going and checking out the restroom any time we went out to eat.

I have noted though, that there are a number of people who act very strangely when faced with being in a public restroom. I mean some behavior is seriously weird and some is just a little quirky, but honestly it is something that sort of sticks with you. I am not actively trying to pay attention to what other people are doing, but sometimes you can't help but notice it.

There are the normal odd things you see. There is the talker. This person will talk on their phone, they will talk to their friend who walked in with them, they will talk randomly to the stranger in the stall next to them, and they will talk through the entire experience. It isn't unusual to talk to someone when you are in the sink area but once you are in the stall there should be no further discussion.

There is the flusher. These women will repeatedly flush the toilet to cover up any sounds that are coming out of the stall. Its not like we don't know what the flush is covering up. Also very bad for water conservation.

There is the nervous giggler/hummer. If you have never experienced this person you are lucky. They seem to get nervous at the awkwardness of a public restroom and will hum to themselves or even giggle for no apparent reason. Trust me it is disconcerting to hear laughter coming out of the stall next to you. 

There are the people who will touch nothing. The flush with their foot, they use paper towel to open every door and turn on the sink. The use toilet seat covers or perfect the art of hovering. Might I just add that it is normally the act of hovering that causes issues for the rest of us.

Then there are people who are just weird. You come across people doing things that are just outside the realm of even just odd. When I leave the restroom asking what just happened then there are issues.

Take today for example. I was heading to the restroom just before lunch, and as I walked in another woman was entering right on my heels. I held the door for her, she smiled and thanked me. It was all fairly cordial and normal. I went into the stall to do my thing and she...well she just stood there.

There were plenty of empty stalls, she could have chosen any of them. If she was one of those people who like to have at least one empty stall between them and another person she had the space. Still she was just sort of milling about outside the stalls. She wasn't close to the sinks or the mirrors. She was just there.

As soon as I exited my stall she swooped into one of the other stalls. Of course now my interest is piqued and as I go about washing my hands I can't help but to pay attention to what she is doing. Well she wasn't doing anything. She was just standing there waiting for me to leave. It was all very strange.

A few weeks ago I ran across another woman with strange habits. I was sitting there when a woman entered the stall next to mine. The first thing she did was flush the toilet with her foot. I only know this because I could see her foot under the wall, but also she lost her balance and nearly fell down. All the shaking as she hit the wall caught my attention.

This in itself wasn't really strange. Lots of women flush with their foot rather than touch the handle. I think it is odd but it isn't unusual. Also I have known a lot of women to flush before use. Sometimes there is something lingering. I am not sure really what difference it makes, but it matters. I admit I always flush if there is anything left over from the previous occupant. So far the only notable thing really was her falling into the wall.

Then I can hear her pulling out toilet paper and wiping off the seat. Again not really weird. She wipes it down and again flushes with her foot. Then she does it again. In fact she repeats this process five times in total. Fresh toilet paper, wipe, flush with foot. Five times.

Ok so now I am actually paying attention. Totally weird on my behalf, but you know I am a captive audience. I hear her wrestling with the toilet seat covers and finally gets around to the job at hand. I politely ignore her as best I can. I mean her pre-potty ritual was weird but no one wants to listen in on the actual pottying*.

Afterwards there is the flushing with the foot again and then the seat wiping ritual again. Yes another five times. After that I am fairly sure she pulled out toilet paper to open the stall door and go to wash her hands. I should note that she actually washed her hands when she came into the bathroom in the first place. She obviously had germ issues.

I could hear her wash her hands, wipe down the sink, dry her hands and then the awkward moment at the door where she uses a paper towel to open the door but then has to prop the door open with her foot while she leans back in to throw the paper towel away.

I mentioned this to a friend who is also a coworker and she said she had experienced the same thing on a few occasions. We are guessing it is all some sort of OCD ritual. Still it is the strangest thing I have come across in a public restroom.

I am sure in some ways it is awkward or wrong to be talking about this. I am sure I have just broken all sorts of unspoken rules. I don't really care. I mean we all experience this sort of thing, some of us more often than others. It can be weird and certainly noteworthy.



*Ok so I totally get that there are people who do, but I am SO NOT ONE OF THEM!!!

Nice and slow

I don't own a crockpot. I have never owned a crockpot. My mother did not own a crockpot nor did my grandmother. I have never in my life cooked in a crockpot. Most likely I never will.

Now this is not really some personal aversion to the device. I know lots of people who swear by crockpots and get a lot of good use out of them. I know people that would prefer to cook in their crockpots to cooking a regular meal any day of the week. I have heard all of the things about how easy and convenient they are. 

It is just that they were never part of my life. Just like I had no idea what that blue box from Kraft was all about until I was in high school, we didn't do meals like that when I was growing up. There were  not a lot of short cuts or easy solution meals going on. Instant foods were not a big staple around the house as a kid. I suppose that is a biproduct of living with my grandmother.

Of course now I am more than willing to cook a box of instant potatoes. I have also been known to make instant mac and cheese, though that was mostly in college. I will take short cuts to my meals and take the easy road when necessary. There just isn't going to be a crockpot involved.

First off I have no idea how to use one. I know they are pretty foolproof, but in my world words like foolproof are just an invitation for disaster. With my luck I would destroy the damn thing or get  nothing but inedible meals out of it.

More importantly though the husbeast would not eat anything that came out of it. He flat out refuses. If we go to someones house for dinner and they let him know dinner was made in a crockpot, he is hard pressed to choke down dinner, even if it is really amazingly good.

According to him, when he was growing up his step father had no teeth. As many can imagine this would make eating difficult. The solution was apparently to cook every meal in a crockpot until it was super soft and easily gummed. As a result the majority of the husbeasts meals as an adolescent were soupy mushy concoctions ladled out of a crock pot.

He tells me that the final straw was when his step father cooked steak to the point that it was so soft that they couldn't use forks to eat it. He swore after that he would never eat anything that was cooked from a crockpot again. He is nothing if not stubborn.

Now I understand that this is not the common use for a crockpot. I understand that it is normally not the case at all. I know that you can make tasty food in these contraptions, and I think he understand that too. It is just a lot of psychological damage that isn't about to be undone by one nice pot roast.

I have come to accept this and am mostly ok with it. I don't have any desire to own or use a crock pot, and he has no desire to eat anything from one. There are days though that I think that it would be so very nice to dump everything in a pot in the morning and have dinner ready when I get home. Also there are a million great looking recipes out there for a slow cooker which I will never get to use and that is a little frustrating.

What's for dinner?

I have come to the decision that while I love eating out, I hate it at the same time. Honestly most everything I get in restaurants is not good for me, both in a health aspect and a wallet aspect. Also I can typically make something that tastes better and costs less.

Really the biggest bonus to eating out is that I don't have to cook it or clean the kitchen. What can I say? I can be an incredibly lazy beast at times. I get busy. I get tired. I get in a mood to not care enough to make something for dinner. I think this is sad because I love to cook.

None the less I will always find a time when I would rather eat out than stand up and make my own dinner. Since this is something that is never going to change I have made a few decisions about my dining out experiences.

First I have decided to try and steer clear of most chain restaurants. There are some small localish chains that I honestly enjoy, like Razzoo's. I am thinking more along the lines of the TGI-Cheddar-Chil-Bees of this world. Their food is so generic and not terribly good. Every time I eat at one I am incredibly disappointed in the service and the quality. It is miserable and I am left hungry and pissed off for having spent the cash on the meal.

So I have decided if I am going to go out it should be to local restaurants. It has the added bonus of supporting small businesses in my community. Also I typically like the food better and sometimes even the prices are less offensive. I have a couple of local Asian and Mexican restaurants, and a couple of American cuisine restaurants that I like a lot. Now I just need to find a reasonably priced local Italian place and we will be set.

I have also decided that when I do eat out I should be bold in my choices. I am pretty well known for eating the exact same thing every time we go out to eat. Most people who dine with me regularly could order for me without thinking about it. I am predictable.

This food is expensive and normally outside my calorie count for the day, so I might as well be doing something like broadening my culinary world while I do it. I mean if I am just going to get chicken strips I might as well just stay home and make them myself. Mine taste a damn sight better anyways.

The last few times we have gone out to eat I have applied both of these new rules. I can say honestly they were some of the best dining out experiences I have had in a while. I have discovered some dishes I really like, that normally I would have never tried.

My waistline and my pocket book might not always be happy with me eating out. Since I don't plan on stopping anytime soon, the rest of me might as well enjoy it.

Tuesday Confessions

Tuesday confessional:

- I think the LOL Cat stuff is stupid. The general idea of I can haz cheeseburger makes me roll my eyes. I don't think they are cute or funny, I find them obnoxious and annoying about 98% of the time.

- While I find pictures of cute fluffy animals cute, I really don't feel a need to see them constantly. If you were actually handing me a kitten or puppy or bunny that would be different. Just seeing a picture of said fluffy animal isn't going to improve my day.

- I think Will Ferrel is a waste of a perfectly good actor, much like Jim Carrey used to be. I have seen him do something that was not stupid and he was sort of brilliant and entertaining. Why must he insist on doing stupid movies? I don't think movies like Anchorman are even amusing let alone funny. Jim Carrey started redeeming himself for me somewhere around the Truman show, and has been steadily improving since then. Why couldn't Ferrel make the same sort of change after Stranger than Fiction?

- I love cheap canned ballpark nacho cheese. I especially like it when it sits on the chip long enough to make the chip soggy. It is my guilty pleasure.

- I like looking at other peoples spaces. I will sometimes walk around the office if it is late and everyone has left, or if I get in super early, and look in peoples cubes to see how they have decorated and try and get an idea of what sort of person they are. I look in peoples windows if their curtains are open too.

- I hate noise. I go to great lengths to make sure that my computer never makes any noises at all. I immediately turn off any background music or sound effects on any game I play. I spend hours trying to find sounds that won't annoy me on my phone when I get a new one. I hate when people let the microwave beep for more than one beep. I will stop the microwave 1 second before it ends to keep from hearing the beep.

- I think celery has an incredibly strong flavor and smell and can not stand it. If a recipe calls for celery I tend to use a lot less than is called for so the celery isn't overpowering to me.

- I will always tell you how I am if you ask. People who ask it as a politeness expecting to hear a simple 'fine' are often disappointed that I will actually tell them more than they wanted to know. Sometimes 'fine' is how I am doing, but if I feel sick, tired, hungry, cranky, annoyed, or anything else you will know it. It will not be that succinct either.

- I loved being in school and never wanted to have a summer break. Sometimes I miss it. A lot.

- I have no googlefoo. I have never been able to make search engines work in my favor. I swear I have typed the same thing into google as the person next to me and not been able to find the same information as they have. I have a similar problem with YouTube which is why I almost never use it.

- I don't typically like or listen to modern music. I am almost always a year or two behind on popular music unless the song is featured on Glee or is pumped into my gym. I just don't care enough.

- I love haunted houses and horror movies because I love getting scared in a controlled environment. I haven't been to a haunted house that actually scared me since I was in high school. This is mostly due to the use of strobe lights in almost all haunts. I have to focus so hard on not looking at them that nothing scares me. I laugh at horror movies more often than I am frightened by them. Sometimes I worry about myself because of this.

- I love going outside when it is super hot, like 100 or more, after I have been inside a super cold building for a long amount of time. I will go just sit in the car for a few minutes so I can feel the heat slowly seeping into me. It is something I look forward to every year.

- I don't like J.R.R. Tolkein, Anne Rice, or Jane Austen books. I love their stories but I can't make myself enjoy their writing. I have the same problem with Stephen King with anything longer than a short story.

- I have never watched a classic James Bond movie. I saw one Pierce Brosnan movie and the last 20 minutes of Goldfinger. For me Bond is Daniel Craig mostly because he is the only version of Bond I have really watched.

- I own almost 300 movies. This does not include television series. I own 32 different TV series. Most of them are complete series, if all seasons are available. I want more.